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BE THANKFUL FOR WATER

Name: BE THANKFUL FOR WATER
Author: Harriet Ziefert
ISBN: 9781636550749

HOW WATER SUSTAINS OUR PLANET

by Harriet Ziefert ; illustrated by Brian Fitzgerald ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 14, 2023

This colorful, easy-reading introduction to our planet’s greatest resource makes a splash.

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For habitat, cleanliness, weather, recreation, health, nutrition, and life itself, we are indebted to water.

Each of the functions above is the focus of a different section in this very attractive ode to the uses of H2O. Each part begins with a similar rhetorical question about a waterless world: “Could we keep clean without water?” “Would life be fun without water?” “Would our bodies stay healthy without water?” “Would the earth have seasons without water?” Followed by the emphatic answers: “We could not!” “It would not!” “They would not!” “It would not!” At one point the book conflates weather and seasons, and a few verses don’t quite flow, but for the most part, this is an utterly praise-worthy celebration of water. Near the end, a couple of pages suggest watery problems—“man-made debris,” “factory black sludge,” and “old plastic galore”—but we’re soon back to the positive. A final double-page spread features abstract human figures holding signs labeled “Climate Change,” “Water Is a Human Right,” and “There Is No Planet B.” The illustrations are a perfect fit: Bright, clear, without hard lines or shadows, they depict lots of active animals and lively, racially diverse kids, including several who use wheelchairs. This book will work both for lap and group reading.

This colorful, easy-reading introduction to our planet’s greatest resource makes a splash. (Informational picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023

ISBN: 9781636550749

Page Count: 80

Publisher: Red Comet Press

Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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IS A BOOK A BOX FOR WORDS?
by Harriet Ziefert ; illustrated by Mercè Galí

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I REALLY WANT TO BE FIRST!
by Harriet Ziefert ; illustrated by Travis Foster

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I REALLY WANT A BIGGER PIECE!
by Harriet Ziefert ; illustrated by Travis Foster

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BUTT OR FACE?

by Kari Lavelle ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2023

A gleeful game for budding naturalists.

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Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.

In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: July 11, 2023

ISBN: 9781728271170

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore

Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
ODE TO GRAPEFRUIT
by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Bryan Collier

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WE MOVE THE WORLD
by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Nabi H. Ali

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ANIMAL ARCHITECTS

From the Amazing Animals series

by Amy Cherrix ; illustrated by Chris Sasaki ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 2021

An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort.

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A look at the unique ways that 11 globe-spanning animal species construct their homes.

Each creature garners two double-page spreads, which Cherrix enlivens with compelling and at-times jaw-dropping facts. The trapdoor spider constructs a hidden burrow door from spider silk. Sticky threads, fanning from the entrance, vibrate “like a silent doorbell” when walked upon by unwitting insect prey. Prairie dogs expertly dig communal burrows with designated chambers for “sleeping, eating, and pooping.” The largest recorded “town” occupied “25,000 miles and housed as many as 400 million prairie dogs!” Female ants are “industrious insects” who can remove more than a ton of dirt from their colony in a year. Cathedral termites use dirt and saliva to construct solar-cooled towers 30 feet high. Sasaki’s lively pictures borrow stylistically from the animal compendiums of mid-20th-century children’s lit; endpapers and display type elegantly suggest the blues of cyanotypes and architectural blueprints. Jarringly, the lead spread cheerfully extols the prowess of the corals of the Great Barrier Reef, “the world’s largest living structure,” while ignoring its accelerating, human-abetted destruction. Calamitously, the honeybee hive is incorrectly depicted as a paper-wasps’ nest, and the text falsely states that chewed beeswax “hardens into glue to shape the hive.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)

An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort. (selected sources) (Informational picture book. 5-8)